Part 54 (1/2)

Hewas the one who needed consolation. She, after all, was not locked up. Nor was she suspected of some insane crime that she would never have committed. Nor-no, hewasn'tparanoid-was she the victim of an involved and ominous plot.

Chen was still trying to think of the best thing to say next when conversation was interrupted by a distant blast, a faint vibration racing through the floor. In the little intercom screen, Olga's image turned its head away, distracted by the noise.

”More remodeling,” Chen decided. ”Clearing the slums.”

”I don't know. It didn't sound . . .”

”Didn't sound what?”

”I don't know.” Then she surprised him. ”Wait, I'll be right back.”

”Leaving your post? Oh, I'll wait, all right.”

She was back in about five seconds, properly at her post again, standing up straight in a military way and using her communicator. ”Post Seven here. Officer of the day?”

Olga repeated the call. Apparently she was having trouble getting anyone's attention. She called again, several times, but Chen could tell that no one was answering.

She paused to look into the intercom at Chen. ”I don't think that was blasting,” she said, and then went back to trying the communicator on her wrist to hail her superiors. But still n.o.body responded.

Her manner remained calm, but something about it was alarming. It didn't take much to alarm someone who was already locked up, Chen realized. He demanded: ”What's wrong? What is it, then?”

And even as he spoke, there were more faint blasting sounds, this time accompanied by faint distant screams.

”I think it's berserkers,” said Olga Khazar, in a remote, taut voice. She had paused, holding the communicator a few centimeters from her lips. Her head was turned away from him again.

”Berserkers.Berserkers?” It couldn't be, not really. Not here on the Templar Fortress. And yet, somehow, he already knew it was.

She didn't answer, she was busy.

”You've got to let me out!”

Her dark eyes in the screen turned toward him. ”I don't have a key.”

”I don't care! You've got to-”

For ten long seconds they argued back and forth.

Abruptly she gave in. In a way that scared him all the more, making the whole threat real. She said: ”All right, all right. Stand back away from the door, way back. Better go into the latrine.”

Her image was drawing its sidearm.

Going all the way into the toilet was unnecessary, thought Chen. He didn't want to lose a second getting out of the room once the door was open. He retreated into the middle of the room, looked about wildly, and dove behind a sofa just in time. There was a ripping, shattering noise, and he heard small pieces of something fly against the walls.

Olga's voice, heard directly now, yelled at him: ”Come on!”

Chen burst from concealment, and ran for the room's door, which now hung open, amid aerial dust and the smell of something scorched. Fragments of metal and stone powder were strewn everywhere, and Olga Khazar had her firearm in hand. Chen moved forward, through more dust, out of the room. The corridor was empty except for Olga and himself, but in the distance he could hear people yelling.

”Thanks!”

She looked grim. ”I figured it was part of my duty, to keep you alive. Come on, follow me.”

Chen followed. He thought he knew where they were headed, or the first stop at least. Yesterday he'd already been taken, under heavy guard, through one practice drill with the s.p.a.cesuits, and he'd had to wear one on his little drive with Commander Blenheim. He now knew enough about the suits to use one in an emergency, which this certainly seemed to be. He followed Olga at a run down one corridor and then another to where their a.s.signed emergency suits were stored.

Olga holstered her pistol, then took the belt and holster off and laid them down. She opened two of a row of lockers and dragged out two suits.

Chen said: ”I could use a gun, too.”

”I don't have one of those to give you. Get that suit on quick.” She knew the tone for giving orders, all right, even if she was at or near bottom rank herself. Probably, Chen thought, she had listened to enough of them to master the technique.

He asked: ”Where are we going now?”

She had her own s.p.a.cesuit on already, over her regular uniform, and was clipping the holstered pistol on at her hip. ”I'm going to rejoin my unit, and you're coming with me.”

That was all right. The young lady sounded as if she knew what she was doing, and Chen was not about to try going anywhere alone just now if he could help it.

Suits on, helmets closed, they moved again. The suits were so light and well designed that they hardly slowed one down. As they trotted, Chen keeping up with Olga, there was more blasting, mixed with other sounds of weaponry, to their right and left. And now a large detonation ahead of them as well.

Berserkers, streaking units in the sky, were intermittently visible. Fast as missiles, some of the a.s.sault units projected themselves in streaking curves that bent around the Radiant's distorted core of s.p.a.ce, picking up speed again as they neared their intended spots of impact or landing.

Gun in hand now, Olga slowed down, then stopped, then peered around a corner. ”I don't know how much farther in this direction we can go . . .” She moved to a different corner. ”Let's try down here instead. Some of my squad should be around . . .” She stopped abruptly.

Chen peered over her suited shoulder. Ahead, part of a wall had been demolished, along with something else. The mangled body looked unreal to Chen, a dummy in a Templar uniform.

But Olga recognized the dead young man, and called him by name. Chen could see that she was almost sick.

Chen, feeling only numb(this isn't really happening),spoke to her-later he could never remember what words he had used-trying to comfort her somehow. Then he bent and picked up the fallen Templar's weapon, a kind of short rifle. He thought it was what they called a carbine.

Looking as pale as her dark skin would allow, Olga muttered: ”I'll show you how to use that when we have a chance.”

”Better show me now.”

”Aim it. Get an approximate aim first. Look at your target through the scope sight, here, if you have the chance.” Her eyes were distracted, searching for terror and death around them, but her fingers moved surely on the carbine. She was repeating a lesson that she could have given in her sleep. ”Here's the locking sight control. Touch it when you're looking at your target; the sight reads your eyeball and locks on. Your trigger is here, your safety here.”

Chen rose to his feet, the weapon cradled in his arms. He looked up. He saw an enemy machine pa.s.sing swiftly in the distance. He tried to aim, knew he was mishandling the sight somehow, but blasted off some rounds anyway, without noticeable effect.

Olga struck his arm down violently. ”Don't draw them down on us, you d.a.m.ned fool! Don't shoot unless you have to. I don't know how much good a carbine's going to do us.”

”All right.”

”We can't get through to the base this way. We'll try the docks. Come on.” They started in another direction.

They were now coming into a different part of the City from any that Chen had visited before; soon he would be hopelessly disoriented. But that worry dropped from his mind almost at once, replaced by something more immediate.

Looking back across a plaza, he started and then grabbed Olga by the arm. ”One of them . . . one of th-them's coming after us.”

At a distance of a couple of hundred meters it looked tall, and it was walking on three legs, a relatively slow-moving machine. Maybe it was a primitive type, but there was little comfort in the thought.